Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1399888
j u ly • a u g u s t • s e p t e m b e r 2 0 2 1 c g w 2 7 3D with a Twist the mouse across the geometry and is rela- tively simple. The Boolean tool is much more complicated based on the fact that Boolean difference operations make geometry ex- tremely unstable and difficult to pass down the pipeline. Moreover, there is no rig for these charac- ters, says Lasker, as every animator used the two tools differently for each scene and, as a result, no two transformations are the same. As they did for the human world, the artists developed a number of other tools to use for this robot realm, some of which they had been evolving over the past cou- ple of shows. One such tool enabled them to paint a very graphic, sharp reflection and give it virtual depth. Another tool, called the Magic Cube shader, was used mostly for the show- down in the mall, to build the multiple store interiors and give them virtual depth. Used for the building interiors in Spider-Verse, the tool evolved for use in The Mitchells. "The visual development team could design the interiors of all the mall stores using this very illustrative look, and they would give us Pho- toshop files with the layers for the walls, ceil- ing, and items in the stores. So, if we had a flat plane, we would map this on and create a virtual fake interior," explains Lasker. "You get the walls, the floors… everything in the store, and it looks really painterly, but it's all mapped onto a flat plane. It really sold the mall. Between the graphic reflections and the virtual interiors, we got a more illustrative yet sleek look in the robot world." Katie Vision Because Katie Mitchell is herself a film- maker, the team felt it was a great idea to have her creativity and vision spill onto the screen — a visual touch they called "Katie Vision." "The idea was, if Katie is a filmmaker who makes all these goofy movies, what if it felt like she was the one editing our mov- ie? So, she's the one writing on the frame and drawing hearts around her mom and devil horns on her dad," explains Rianda. "It seemed like a really fun way to show her character more within the filmmaking of the movie itself. We wanted to make her this relentlessly creative person who's drawing on her shoes, her pants, the wall, or wher- ever. So, it would make sense that she was drawing on the frame." All the artists loved playing with the idea, too, as it gave them an opportunity to mix CG animation, live-action material , and 2D drawings. The imagery had to stand out in frame, but not too much. Olivares adds: "We took our beautiful 3D renders and drew on them by hand as though Katie herself had drawn over them. There's a young energy and freedom that comes from taking a very high quality final frame and drawing directly over it like a teenager." Sometimes Katie Vision was presented as little expressive marks and small pictures here and there on the frame; other times it would take over the entire frame. As a result, Olivares and others had to create shot ele- ments for animation, involving themselves in SPI's shot production pipeline, and then it would be integrated in comp. "Animation wouldn't pay attention to it. They would just ignore that there was any Katie Vision going to happen, because Katie Vision was supposed to be reactive to what Animation was doing," explains Lasker. "It was very artistic and gave the film a home-movie feel, and it helped connect the audience to Katie as an artist. It was very cool." A New Dawn for CGI Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was very well received by audiences, taking home a number of awards for Best Animated Film, including the 2019 Oscar. Meanwhile, The Mitchells has been especially popular with Netflix viewers. Perhaps it's because of the story, or perhaps it's due to its unique animation aesthetic — or both. Initially, the new look for Spider-Verse had been somewhat of a jolt for SPI — "It made you tear out every principle that you had been doing for years and years in CG and reinvent it," says Lasker. Indeed, at the beginning it was a huge challenge, but one that grew on them. "It kind of becomes all you want to do. You just want to make new looks," he adds. "I felt like a different artist. Once you do something that's so new and so creatively challenging, that becomes all you want to do creatively as an artist. It really had a huge impact on the studio and on so many people who worked on Spider-Verse." Then, they had the chance to travel down yet another unique, new path for this film. So, does Lasker see CGI moving in dif- ferent directions? "I definitely do," he says, pointing to some recent examples, including I Lost My Body, Wolfwalkers, Soul, Love, Death + Robots, and Pixar's latest film, Luca. "I think audiences are looking for more creative looks, there's an appetite for it. There are some amazing movies that have cool, amaz- ing styles, and people are seeing animation as a lush medium. There are so many things you can do with it, and I think you're going to see that happening more and more." Karen Moltenbrey is the chief editor of CGW. The artists used Maya for modeling and Houdini for effects.